Twitter is a microblogging service that allows users to send and receive short 140-character messages called tweets. Users can follow other users on Twitter to receive their tweets and see updates about their activities. In education, Twitter is being used more for professional development as teachers can follow others to find lesson ideas, resources, and ask questions. Responses and discussions on Twitter around topics like how to use technology in the classroom can be collected and shared with other teachers.

1. Nanuet Professional Development
Technology Cheat Sheet
Twitter
Twitter is a popular microblogging service for computers and mobile
devices. Twitter users have 140 characters to send tweets to their followers. These tweets contain text
but can have links to photos, video and websites. Think of Twitter as sending a mass text message to a
group of people. If I am interested in the work of a math teacher in Australia I can follow her tweets. This
gives me a window into her world and a communication I never had. More and more companies,
organizations and people have a presence on Twitter. It is a quick, cheap and easy way to get your
message out. Science teachers follow the scientists at Brookhaven Labs. Students can follow authors or
news sources. You do not need to send messages to be a part of the Twitter community. You can simply
follow other people's messages or search the real time updates. Twitter can be used by a teacher to send
out a message for the night's homework or by a district to notify parents of an upcoming event or
cancellation. In the education community Twitter is being used more and more as a professional
development tool. Teachers follow other teachers to see what lesson ideas they have, what resources
they are reading or reaching out for help or classroom connections. Ongoing PD can occur if a teacher
follows the right mix of people. The "Interesting Ways to Use Twitter" presentation below was created
through Twitter. A tweet was sent out asking "How do you use Twitter in school?" This tweet gets
passed around among teachers and a community of teachers builds consulting each other through
Twitter on how to use Twitter in the classroom. This can also be done for questions like "how do you use
your SMARTBoard or what role does assessment play in education?" Responses were given through
Twitter and collected in a collaborative presentation. Twitter enables diverse groups spread around the
world to communicate easily, quickly and cheaply.
1) Navigate your browser to http://twitter.com/.
2) Twitter is a free service but you do have to register for an account. You can search Twiiter
without an account to see what people are saying about certain topics.
3) After you are logged in you are ready to start tweeting. The top menu bar lets users navigate
Twitter. Home shows you the tweets of the people you are following. Profile shows your own
tweets. Find people is a search to find people on Twitter. Settings deal with your account
usernames, passwords, profile and background pictures, mobile set up, etc.

2. 4) The below box is the main focus of Twitter. You can answer the question “What’s Happening”
which a lot of people use to describe what they are doing at that moment or you can use it to be
more productive and share resources or start conversations.
5) In this section I can see who follows me and who I follow. Listed means someone compiled a list of
say math teachers and included me in that list. I will speak to lists more below.
6) Twitter will suggest who you might like to follow based on who you currently follow.
7) If someone wants to respond to something you said on Twitter they will use@username. This will
notify you of that response. People can send a direct message (DM) to a user so their other
followers don’t see the message. You can favorite tweets much like you can bookmark websites.
Retweet (RT) means someone is forwarding along a message they think is important or relevant.

3. 8) The tweets of the people you follow come in here. People send out links using URL shortners. Up
and down arrows mean it is a Retweet by someone. #TopicTitle is a subject name or Hashtag
people use to link together a common theme. If I want to find all the information for #edcampkc I
can search or click on #edcampkc. This is very helpful for organizing information or keeping all
the material for a class together. Photo and video sites let people tweet multimedia as well.
9) Each individual tweet gives you three options. You can favorite and save the tweet. Reply to the
person sending the tweet. Or Retweet or forward along the tweet to your followers.
10) Lists lets you organize the people you follow or interests into manageable streams of linked
tweets.
11) Trending shows people what the most popular topics are in Twitter.